hyperledger/fabric · error

invalid chaincode event

Error message

invalid chaincode event

What it means

When V1_2Validation capabilities are enabled and the chaincode action includes Events, VSCC unmarshals them as a peer.ChaincodeEvent; the unmarshal failed, so the events bytes are not a valid ChaincodeEvent protobuf. The transaction is invalidated with TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON and the underlying error wrapped in this message.

Source

Thrown at core/committer/txvalidator/v14/vscc_validator.go:124

		err = errors.Errorf("inconsistent ccid info (%s/%s)", ccID, respPayload.ChaincodeId.Name)
		logger.Errorf("%+v", err)
		return peer.TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON, err
	}
	// sanity check on ccver
	if ccVer == "" {
		err = errors.New("invalid chaincode version")
		logger.Errorf("%+v", err)
		return peer.TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON, err
	}

	var wrNamespace []string
	alwaysEnforceOriginalNamespace := v.cr.Capabilities().V1_2Validation()
	if alwaysEnforceOriginalNamespace {
		wrNamespace = append(wrNamespace, ccID)
		if respPayload.Events != nil {
			ccEvent := &peer.ChaincodeEvent{}
			if err = proto.Unmarshal(respPayload.Events, ccEvent); err != nil {
				return peer.TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON, errors.Wrapf(err, "invalid chaincode event")
			}
			if ccEvent.ChaincodeId != ccID {
				return peer.TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON, errors.Errorf("chaincode event chaincode id does not match chaincode action chaincode id")
			}
		}
	}

	namespaces := make(map[string]struct{})
	for _, ns := range txRWSet.NsRwSets {
		// check to make sure there is no duplicate namespace in txRWSet
		if _, ok := namespaces[ns.NameSpace]; ok {
			return peer.TxValidationCode_ILLEGAL_WRITESET, errors.Errorf("duplicate namespace '%s' in txRWSet", ns.NameSpace)
		}
		namespaces[ns.NameSpace] = struct{}{}

		if !v.txWritesToNamespace(ns) {
			continue
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 2736b63f8f)

Solutions

1. Fix the chaincode to emit events via the shim's SetEvent with a valid ChaincodeEvent-compatible payload (payload bytes may be arbitrary, but the event wrapper must be standard shim-generated protobuf).
2. Check the chaincode shim version matches the peer's proto definitions.
3. Inspect respPayload.Events bytes with protoc --decode_raw to identify the malformed content.

Example fix

// before: custom serialization inside shim event field
stub.SetEvent("evt", myCustomProtoBytes)
// after: standard shim event; put custom data in the Event.Payload
stub.SetEvent("evt", []byte(`{"k":"v"}`))

if len(respPayload.Events) > 0 {
    evt := &peer.ChaincodeEvent{}
    if err := proto.Unmarshal(respPayload.Events, evt); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("events bytes are not a valid ChaincodeEvent: %w", err)
    }
}

func isValidChaincodeEvent(b []byte) bool {
	evt := &peer.ChaincodeEvent{}
	return len(b) == 0 || proto.Unmarshal(b, evt) == nil
}

if err := proto.Unmarshal(respPayload.Events, ccEvent); err != nil {
    return peer.TxValidationCode_INVALID_OTHER_REASON, errors.Wrapf(err, "invalid chaincode event")
}

When it happens

Trigger: respPayload.Events contains bytes that do not decode as ChaincodeEvent — e.g. a chaincode emits events serialized with a custom format (JSON, plain string) instead of protobuf, or corrupts the field.

Common situations: Chaincode developers using SetEvent with non-protobuf expectations or custom binary payloads inside event bytes; chaincodes ported from other frameworks; shim/proto version mismatches.

Understand the failure class

Background: "cannot parse invalid wire-format data", "cannot unmarshal", "failed unmarshalling": protobuf unmarshal errors explained — this error's family across 10 libraries.

Related errors

• chaincode event chaincode id does not match chaincode action
• error unmarshalling ChaincodeHeaderExtension
• nil ChaincodeId in header extension
• nil ChaincodeId in ChaincodeAction
• invalid chaincode ID

AI-assisted analysis of hyperledger/fabric@2736b63f8f (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bdd23addd60ba81f. Report an issue: GitHub.